Monday, May 19, 2008

The Remus Lupins and the Young Amy

Have you ever had an experience where some of your highest values and most important memories came to the forefront of the present moment and reoccurred, making it feel like years of your life integrated themselves into an intense focus and came full circle? Well, I have!

It was Monday, March 17, 2008, St. Patrick's Day. My husband, Robert, and I went to see a favorite band of mine at a place called The Modern Exchange in Southgate, Mich. Before I describe the scene, I need to give some back-story.

When I was in high school, I was an artsy punk/goth/Nietschzean existentialist (explicitly!), and even looked the part (pictures coming soon). There was a vintage clothing store called Penny Pinchers that I tried to frequent as much as I could. The owners brought the strangest, most flamboyant clothes from New York, and the owners were rumored to be good friends of the B-52s. Everything was odd about the place, in the best sense of odd.

I loved seeing the other artsy people who dared to go in (the bizarre mannequins in the front windows made good scarecrows). They played the most mysterious music, and there was even a distinct musty spell about the place. It meant a lot to me being there, and took me out of the boring, ugly world that I called home, and gave me a glimpse of what could be, in a life-as-stylistic way. (I’d say similar to how Harry Potter felt when first discovering the wizarding world.)

So one day I was perusing the My Space page of my favorite Wizard Wrock band, The Remus Lupins, and noticed that they were coming to town. Performance night came, and as we were driving up Dix Road in Southgate to find this place, I nearly jumped through the car roof -- to my utter surprise and amazement the ModEx was in the same building as Penny Pinchers! I had no idea. Not a clue. I had known that Penny Pinchers went out of business in the 90s, but no idea still.

After calming down from this exciting revelation, I went inside and learned that they not only sold vintage clothes, they redesigned the back warehouse and built a large stage where they had local bands play most nights and sold their CDs as well! What is really amazing about all this is that many of these local bands were from my hometown, and they were punk bands (!).

When I was a teenager, the dearth of anything new and interesting and weird and romantic and adventurous was palpable and stifling. I was the only one of my kind (which I'll explain in a future post). To find my hometown brimming with alternative bands playing every night of the week at the epicenter of my former oasis was, well, rather amazing. My past as a punk rocker (of the good, philosophical kind) hit straight on with my present as a big fan of The Remus Lupins. It was thrilling!

Here is an audio clip of one of that night's songs -- listening is the only means of understanding the awesomeness of Alex Carpenter of the Lupins on stage with only an acoustic guitar, a mic and dozens of singing and screaming girls (including me!). Brilliant!!!